Ace3 also has a wiki entry now, though it is not as detailed as the Rock entry.

I cannot really say much from a design standpoint, but I feel as if Rock is taking the approach of, "Lets build a better Ace2", and Ace3 is taking the approach of, "Lets take what we've learned from Ace2 and build a better framework"

If there's more insight that each side can contribute about their overall design goals, I'd love to hear it. But please, spare me the bullshit.

Ace3 also has a wiki entry now, though it is not as detailed as the Rock entry.

I cannot really say much from a design standpoint, but I feel as if Rock is taking the approach of, "Lets build a better Ace2", and Ace3 is taking the approach of, "Lets take what we've learned from Ace2 and build a better framework"

If there's more insight that each side can contribute about their overall design goals, I'd love to hear it. But please, spare me the bullshit.

I think alot of the bullshit doesn't really come from the mod/framework author's, but rather uniformed end users. Also, although there may be glaring flaws with Ace2, I think in the overall, many many mods have been developed with the framework, which were substantially better than previous offerings.

Perhaps this was due to the skill of the author's involved, and in spite of, rather than because of the framework. Still though, its hard to deny the overall postive effect I feel its had on the mods I use.

You're right about the Ace3 wiki not being as detailed as Rock's. On the whole though, I understand almost nothing of what is in the Rock's wiki. I don't understand its benifits really, mostly because I don't understand the Ace2 deficiencies.

In this case, its probably not useful for me to know hardcore details about either framework. I just look forward to new, better mods, which will replace the mods I'm using right now, which, admittedly are Ace2 mods for the most part.

I'm still tempted to go to back to bongos. I miss the sticky frames. Much better than BT3's implimentation.

I initially moved away cause of an error, i was getting, and also, not being able to rightclick self cast.

The Ace2 "issues" are something us old-school Ace devs like to call "The Sea Effect"

Way back in the Ace1 days, we had our little rivalry with the Cosmos libs. One of our favorite pasttimes was to read thru the Sea library and see how far we could make it without wanting to ourselves or someone we love. The problem with Sea was that it tried to do _EVERYTHING_. Trying to read the file was something akin to reading an unabridged oxford dictionary. I never made it to the end.

We speculate that the reason Sea was so big was that feature requests were never denied. Something people in the industry call "feature creep".

What does this have to do with Ace2? Well at the start it was great. It was relativly small (some parts smaller than Ace1, other bigger, all improvements), it was fast, it did all we wanted. But it didn't stay that way. Over time more and more and more crap got added in, many of which were only used by a few addons, if any. The result? Sea, version 2.

So what's the deal with Rock, Dongle and Ace3? Well they're all trying to undo what happened to Ace2 essentially. Why are there 3? Because we don't all agree (many much more vocally than others).

What is the outlook for each framework? Well it's too early to say. From my own perspective, I think that ckk and his "clique" will break off and start using Rock. Many Ace2 devs will move to Ace3, some may go to Rock. Dongle devs.... well that's a tossup. I think we're all highly interested in Ace3 and want to see it "done right" this time. We're each lending a hand in some way, be it coding or design recommendations. If Ace3 works out how we all want, it's likely that Dongle devs will come back to Ace, but you never know. People are finicky.

If you notice some old faces that haven't been around for a while, you can probably figure it out on your own.

I think we're all highly interested in Ace3 and want to see it "done right" this time. We're each lending a hand in some way, be it coding or design recommendations. If Ace3 works out how we all want, it's likely that Dongle devs will come back to Ace, but you never know

Beforehand: I'm sure I missed a bunch of IRC discussions about this subject, so forgive me if I ask questions that have already been answered.

Quote from Tuller »

So what should I as a developer be doing?
Evaluating your situation. Take a look at your options, and contributing if you feel like it.

As an addon developer I mainly rely on the libraries to provide me the functionalities I need for my addons. I also want them to be pretty efficient and supported. In this regard, I'm quite framework-agnostic. The fact if that Ace2 fits to my need.

Now I see that the Ace2 seems to give birth to two distinct frameworks and I'm wondering what will happen to libraries and addons. I'm quite sure both of them will be efficient and fit to addon author needs, but the fact they will be TWO framework means that everyone will have to choose one day. I mean :

About libraries : who will port the non-core libraries to each framework ? their author ? people who need them ? Won't this lead to duplicated code, meaning duplicated maintenance, or purely branching ?

About addons : how will an author chose which framework to use for his/her addons ? by the set of available libraries, depending on what he/she needs ? What will happen if someone needs a library ported to one framework and another one ported to the other framework ?

I understand what can lead to this situation, but all this scares me for the future.

Short rehash... libs will port as they are needed. The overall aim of every port should be framework independence. Where that is not possible, you will see many copies.

Program for what you know. Don't push perfectly functional mods to a new framework just because it's there. Port them if you're actively working on it, or if it's a new mod just start there. If the mod's worked fine for months, why port?

And please don't rely on libs as some sort of "black box" super efficient solution. Read the libs you use. Question the functions in them. Criticize the code. The fact that we've not been doing this, that we've turned a blind eye to superfluous feature additions is why Ace2 became what it did. We're all to blame really, kinda like that whole Iraq thing :)

Program for what you know. Don't push perfectly functional mods to a new framework just because it's there. Port them if you're actively working on it, or if it's a new mod just start there. If the mod's worked fine for months, why port?

I'll delay porting as long as I can. But when Ace2 will get "unsupported", I'll have to move on, as most of authors I guess. So I'll probably have to choose a framework and the headache will begin.

Quote from tekkub »

And please don't rely on libs as some sort of "black box" super efficient solution.

I don't. I do read the code, quite often. And if I can live with the unavoidable bunch of flaws of every code, I use it. That's not really the point anyway.

Quote from tekkub »

We're all to blame really, kinda like that whole Iraq thing :)

I don't mean to upset you, but please consider there are a lot of non-american people around there, that may not feel concerned by the Iraq thing in that way. :)